Carey finds silver lining to World Cup selection gloom

It will not surprise anyone who knows Alex Carey that he came to view the most significant setback of his five-year international career to date as more opportunity than obstacle.

That's not to say Carey wasn't stung by his sudden omission from Australia's ODI line-up just one match into their ultimately successful World Cup campaign, replaced by fellow keeper-batter and close colleague Josh Inglis.

Despite being one of only two Australia men (along with Mitchell Starc) to make the Team of the Tournament at the 2019 World Cup, as well as his team's most-capped and fourth-highest runs scorer in the 50-over format across the subsequent four years, Carey was culled after the campaign opener against India.

With 1010 runs at 29.7 (and a strike rate of 85.9) over that four-year window – as well as more keeping dismissals (51) than any rival gloveman at the tournament, save for Bangladesh's Mushfiqur Rahim during that period – Carey understandably argued his case when told he was out of the starting XI for Australia's second Cup game against South Africa.

"You get pretty disappointed hearing that news," Carey told cricket.com.au ahead of his first red-ball appearance since this year's Ashes, for South Australia in the Marsh Sheffield Shield fixture against Victoria starting at Adelaide Oval today.

"You're always going to agree to disagree with certain selection discussions, aren't you?

"We (with selection chair George Bailey and coach Andrew McDonald) had an open, honest conversation and you obviously put the case in your favour when it's your name up for selection, but unfortunately they didn't go with me.

"It takes a while to sink in, and then you find out the reasons why and you go to work on those reasons."

The 32-year-old declined to elaborate on those reasons, but his skinny return of 119 runs from 10 Test and ODI innings on Indian pitches this year coupled with the method of his dismissal in several of those knocks saw him hit the nets with renewed purpose during the six-week Cup campaign.

While ensuring his white-ball skills remained crisp should he win a recall to the Australia line-up, Carey also took the chance to pare back his batting approach in spin-friendly conditions and work on a simpler, more conventional technique.

Under the guidance of team batting coach Michael Di Venuto and former Zimbabwe (and South Australia) keeper-batter Andy Flower who joined Australia's set-up for the Ashes and subsequent World Cup, Carey made the most of what he terms a "mini pre-season".

"It was probably something I haven't been able to do for quite a while, get some time in the nets drilling certain things," he said.

"I was still preparing and ready to go if the opportunity came back around to play, and I kept focusing on the ODI stuff as well as making sure everyone's water bottles were topped up nicely.

"But I also tried to find a few new things in the nets, exploring certain scenarios and different drills.

"Just going back to some basic stuff, hitting in certain areas rather than relying on sweeps and those sort of shots against spin.

"It was just the basics of cricket, and rather than staying in a head space of 'the game's in a couple of days' time and I need to hit some balls in the middle of the bat before moving into match mode', it was nice to strip it back and explore a few things.

"I don’t know if it was what I needed, but I thought it was a really good way to stay focused and try to work on different areas in my game and use different training techniques.

"And there's no better way to do it than in the sub-continent where the ball's spinning and it makes it a bit more challenging.

"So having that time was beneficial, even though I would have loved to be playing."

The rare chance to tinker only highlights the unrelenting schedule for the men's outfit over the past 12 months that featured home Tests against West Indies and South Africa and ODIs against England, hectic Test tours to India and the UK followed immediately by limited-overs series in South Africa and then India prior to the World Cup.

On the occasions he isn't on the road, Carey's priority is "working on how to be a dad" to his and wife Eloise's children Louis (aged five) and Clementine (two), so the opportunity to devote himself exclusively to training away from match-day commitments offered a silver-lining to his exclusion.

And while the left-hander's immediate focus is his first Sheffield Shield outing since October last year and then the upcoming NRMA Insurance Tests against Pakistan starting in Perth on December 14, he has not abandoned hope of a return to the newly crowned world champions' ODI line-up.

Carey believes he and Inglis could feasibly play in the same XI with one assuming the role of specialist batter instead of taking on the keeping duties, as Inglis has done during the ongoing T20I series in India where he plundered 110 off 50 balls faced while skipper Matthew Wade took the gloves.

Rather than quell Carey's appetite for white-ball cricket, where he's not been selected in Australia's T20I team since August 2021, his omission from the World Cup has heightened his hunger to show he can continue to contribute in the limited-overs arena.

His case is bolstered by an ODI record of 1814 runs at 32.98 (strike rate 88.4) from 72 appearances, which represents more runs than Steve Waugh (1676), at a higher average than Brad Haddin (32.38) and a faster rate than Adam Gilchrist (87.3) at the same stage of their respective Australia one-day careers.

"With the discussions we had around the group, there's still some really big opportunities for me to have an impact in the one-day team," Carey said when asked if he now faced a future as a 'Test matches only' international player.

"I haven't played a lot of T20 cricket just because of the scheduling of Test cricket and one-day cricket, so whenever the opportunity arises I try to play some Big Bash games and will maybe explore some opportunities in the winter to play some shorter-format stuff.

"But I still see myself as having a role in the one-day team for Australia.

"We saw the other night with Josh’s range of shots and his ability to play at that tempo, I feel like we could work in the same team with his batting and my batting.

"And I feel like I've played some really good series for Australia and some important innings with consistency over the past five years, so I'd like to think there's opportunities even if we're both in the same team."

Carey's hopes to explore short-format options overseas during the Australia winter – when the men's team's major commitments are the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and USA, as well as white-ball series against England and Ireland – raises the prospect of him taking up a playing deal in the UK.

If that's the case, and he turns out for the T20 Blast or The Hundred tournaments having previously played with English county side Sussex, it will require a return to the country that turned him into a pantomime villain following his now folkloric Ashes stumping of Jonny Bairstow at Lord's.

Carey remains bemused by the level of confected outrage that consumed English cricket, and most visibly its spiritual home ground, when Bairstow fell victim to a lapse in match awareness amid circumstances he himself had practiced on numerous occasions.

The incident prompted a typically tawdry character assassination campaign by Britain's tabloid press that culminated in an erroneous story about Carey failing to pay for a haircut in Leeds.

But it also coincided with a slump in batting form by the former Australia vice-captain whose final three Ashes Tests yielded 71 runs from five innings after posting a maiden Test hundred against South Africa at the MCG then vital half-centuries in the World Test Championship Final and Ashes opener.

Carey claims he never tires of seeing the stumping replayed and adds it will likely become the sort of anecdote that is endlessly rolled out at "sporties' nights once I'm done with cricket, so that's probably a silver lining".

But he takes a differing view to those who maintain the public outcry triggered by Bairstow's dismissal, which proved pivotal in Australia's 43-run win at Lord's that enabled them to retain the urn, was also responsible for his reduced runs output thereafter.

"People can have their opinions on perhaps why I lacked a few runs in the last few innings, but if you ask me the question I've got a different answer to what's been thrown around," Carey said.

"I'm completely at ease and settled with it, and I still find it quite comical that it's brought up.

"I've had other stumpings that haven't been mentioned again after six months, so I'm not sure why this one is."

Carey is tipped to bat at number five for the Redbacks in their final Shield match before the mid-season BBL hiatus, having undertaken his first practice session against a red ball since the Ashes at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

He has been following SA's positive progress in the Shield competition this summer with keen interest via the cricket.com.au live streams while in India, and raced to the room of Australia teammate (and Queensland rival) Marnus Labuschagne immediately after the Redbacks' last-gasp triumph at the Gabba.

But once the Victoria game is completed, and with potentially time to squeeze in a BBL appearance with Adelaide Strikers, Carey will be back into the national fold when Australia's men's Test team convenes in Perth ahead of the Pakistan series in less than a fortnight.

And it's when he once again shares a dressing room with so many of Australia's World Cup-winning players and off-field staff that he expects the magnitude of what the entire group has achieved over a year to be fully appreciated.

"Despite not being in the final eleven for the World Cup, I still pinch myself about what's happened over the past 12 months," he said.

"We're all over the shop at the moment - we've got guys going around playing some Shield cricket, some involved in the T20s in India, and some on a bit of a break.

"It's the way of the world in cricket, you're always playing in a series then the next one rolls around in a week's time.

"So it was nice to celebrate for 24 hours in India before flying out, but it will be a great opportunity in a few weeks' time in Perth when we see some familiar faces and have a chance to reflect a bit further."

Sheffield Shield 2023-24 standings

Team	Matches played M	Wins W	Losses L	Drawn D	No results N/R	Deductions Ded.	Batting Bonus Bat	Bowling Bonus Bowl	Total points PTS
1 Western Australia Men WA	10	5	2	3	0	0	5.53	9.4	47.93
2 Tasmanian Tigers Men TAS	10	5	2	3	0	0	6.06	8.3	47.36
3 NSW Men NSW	10	4	3	3	0	0	6.31	9	42.31
4 Victoria Men VIC	10	4	4	2	0	0	4.74	8.2	38.94
5 South Australia Men SA	10	3	6	1	0	0	5.19	9.3	33.49
6 Queensland Bulls QLD	10	2	6	2	0	0	3.54	8.3	25.84

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Wins

L: Losses

D: Drawn

N/R: No results

Ded.: Deductions

Bat: Batting Bonus

Bowl: Bowling Bonus

PTS: Total points